Highlights

Antoni Maiovvi“Rituals Of Lust”

In his review of last year’s Xander Harris LP, Urban Gothic, Rowan Savage of this parish wrote: “Italo disco and spacesynth originally drew on a sci-fi imaginary, while ‘horror disco’ was confined to moments like Fright Night… [but] we see in their contemporary audi-recreation the recombination of the sonic aesthetics of the unimaginable exterior (‘space’) with visions of the visceral interior made manifest through the frame of the wound.” He then received his third PhD in Cleverology and went back into training for this year’s brainlympics in Chess City, Kalmykia, where he is considered a rank outsider in the face of stifling competition from Chinese and Russian professors of Otherness. We wish him the best of luck, and if he — or you, for that matter, dear reader — fancy a soundtrack to overcoming overwhelming odds, something to play on your portable media player of choice while Glass Bead Gaming your boobs/moobs off, then you could do worse than check out this little gem from Bristolian Anton Caligula Maiof’s new Giallo Disco label — a SPLATALO explosion of guts and glitter, a proper, grown-up fingerwag at the nobody-calls-it-witch-house biscuit thief pretenders.

“Light”

Who’s a sucker for weepy jams? This guy. Seriously, anyone else totally into the new Cloud Nothings album this year? How about when Pure X was Pure Ecstasy, and they had a tape on Leftist Nautical Antiques? Chances are you didn’t get that tape due to “C’est la vie. 08. March 2011,” I believe. But Reighnbeau bringing back that high-crushing-on-you-wavey vibe way way hard. Like, these vocals are making out with my ear. Appropriately, of course. With taste. And that taste is wax, readers, because Bridgetown Records only pumps out brilliance, am I wrong? Scope the label and Reighnbeau’s slick new tape. HI!!!!!!!!!!

“Barry”

Those born after the days of Can’t Get Enough (read: 99.9% of the internet populace) probably associate Barry White with commercials for Arby’s and Vanilla Coke more than they do with classics like “Love Makin’ Music.” And that’s unfortunate, because the rules of probability imply that a large portion of said populace was conceived to the sweet pipes of the late R&B great.

But that’s about to change, because Ghostface Killa (Wu-Tang) and Sheek Louch (The LOX) have taken one of the baby-makin’ music baron’s classics, toughened it up, and set it against gritty images of apple crack pipes, prison guards, and bloody Ferragamo loafers. With “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby,” Ghost and Louch have achieved the impossible, transforming the fuzzy teddybear of R&B into a rabid grizzly. As the vets wax poetic about grimy New York nights, White’s typically-cozy bass rumbles in the background ominously. Barry White? Scary? Yeah, I didn’t believe it at first either, but then again, if you told me he would be the public voice of Arby’s Market Fresh menu, I probably would have thought you were smoking an apple pipe, too. [via Nah Right]

“The View From Here”

“The View From Here” lifts you as an apparition. Floating aloft your home, the tree that covers sunlight into your kitchen, telephone pole wires, birds shitting on your roof, clouds forming into white and grey, and you come to here. Here is where you complete a view. A view of colors sectioned and smeared. Moving outlines dash and drag along the landscape. Where the world curves looks like lit space/stars. One step is another continent, and you’re over deserts and dunes dwindling and resurfacing. Over the ocean, blue and shadows move with and without each other. The arctic ain’t melting, but erupting into streams and rivers. In waves of wind, the rain forest from here subtly and shortly awakens, as if recovering itself with blanketed foliage. Rest now upon “The View From Here.” Contemplate as though you are a part of Earth, not controlling it.

Broken Arrow EP

You know all those beats that take the rhythms of footwork and throw some jazzy chords all over it, often to undeniably lusheffect? Well, if Astro Nautico aren’t behind it, they’re at the very least blogging about it night and day. Now on their 12th release, it appears to be the turn of label founder Paul Jones to reveal his takes. Yet contrary to his labelmates (Kuhn, Obey City), Jones mostly chooses to slow things down and makes things a little more wonky. It’s less juke/jungle hybrid and more late-night, drunken slow-jams, with a subtle dash of the humble bitcrusher and a less subtle spray of wildly panning noise. However, if you feel you’re missing some fine time at 160bpm there’s always the ludicrous Kuhn remix. It’s also free, which is a difficult thing to have qualms with.

Black Is Beautiful [trailer]

Celebrity superstars/fashion icons Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland (also sometimes known as Hype Williams) are set to release Black Is Beautiful, an exhilarating 15-track album of their fuzzy brand of surreal, trash-humping pop. It’s really fucking great. Check out the album’s trailer above, which (as Clash points out) features audio from a WWE advertising campaign. Sounds about right.